OT: Gas Prices...

[conjur]

$1.64.

But, adjusted for inflation, our gas prices are actually pretty good.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: kadajawi
hmm, if you're caring that much about economy, why these huge jeeps, trucks etc.? Are they really so neccessary? What about station wagons? And are these huge engines neccessary? I mean you are having pretty low speed limits, oposed to some german highways, and as far as I heard you don't break them anyway. Here its quite normal to go 60 to 70 when 50 is allowed. So, what for fast cars?

But the low octane may be a point. Here it goes up to 100 afaik, how come in the US 87 is ok?
And taxes on fuel is pretty high, I recall something like 80% in Germany.

as far as the large vehicles, for the rich it's a status thing, for me it's because a car can't go to as many places as a truck/jeep (jeeps are small too btw , take a look at the Ford Expedition and you'll understand what big is) I have to have at least a medium size truck to do my job I drive off into pastures etc. with large boxes to do pc/robotics repair from time to time in the lower mountains of Oklahoma, and my wife has to have at least a small suv to carry around the signs for her job (and we use the jeep to go on vacations due to the internal storage space to keep things dry). We don't break the speed limit much because our cops are anal about the speed limit, 3 speeding tickets a year over 10mph will get your liscense suspended for the next year, if you do it again when you get your liscense back you better learn how to peddle a bike fast. the people who buy fast cars usually do break the speed limit and typically do it in metro areas where they are far less likely to get a ticket. as far as the big engines, I tow a boat and other trailers around from time to time, and the steel sleeved american engines also last a lot longer than the jap/euro aluminum engines, for the kind of travel I do. Station wagons don't really exist here, the ford focus wagon and the huge bmw/lexus/nissan(murano) type wagons (which are really just aerodynamic suv's) are about the only station wagons around, other than the old boats of the 70's that get like 10 mpg.

edit: we don't know why 87 is the norm, but our engines fuel injection systems are calibrated to run best on 87, when we put 89 or better in these low emission cars, we increase the emissions, and often damage the throttle body injectors (although we do get better economy and performance for a short time tho) From what I gather from the media, we are too worried about emissions because of the pressures from NATO to fix our predicament, hopefully (if Bush stays in office another term) we will be able to start our push for a hydrogen based fuel cell infrastructure to get 0 emission vehicles on the road, so all you NATO people who bitch about our poor air quality (funny too that London has the worst air quality of any city in the world and I live in a town that is in the top 10 for clean air in the world) will finally leave us alone.

 

[LANMAN]

Originally posted by: zodder
It's about $1.90 for a gallon of 89 octane here in Rochester. It costs me over $30 to fill up my Jeep now.

That's about the same price here too.

--LANMAN

 

[kadajawi]

Well, in your case that sort of cars make perfect sense (esp going offroad). These really huge cars are pretty seldom, I think I never saw the Expedition before, at least not on roads. Murcielago and F50 are probably more common, if you can say common in these cases.
Probably European cars are tuned for higher octane fuel (less emission?).

My rather weak (64 hp) diesel is able to pull a small boat, although speed limit is like 100 km/h then. I'm at 250000 km and driving it pretty hard (pedal to the steel, reving over the red line etc.), the Nissan 100 NX is said to run fine at 200000 km, etc.
These huge american engines don't need high revs for power tho, and, maybe thats a reason for the low octane fuel, can take lower quality fuel, whereas "our" engines require high quality fuel to run reliable. Trucks here can be run with low quality diesel... you shouldn't try to put that into a normal diesel engine.

I never heard about America caring about emission, good to hear that.

 

[RemyCanad]

I would say 60% of the people that own large SUVs and such have never taken them off roading. (I remember a time in texas when it snowed pretty bad, well really bad for there and all these people that has SUVs thought because they had four wheel drive they could drive like normal. They found out that, that is not the case and there were tons of SUVs stuck on the side of the road! )

As for why our engines run on 87 I am just not sure. I am thinking it simply has to do with people want cheap gas, 87 is cheap, car companies give people what they want...

Oh yeah and vans can carry a lot of people. And I have taken some vans off roading, they actually do ok if you watch what your doing. Just don't be taking them on a jeep trail.

 

[kadajawi]

Over here I'd say 95% don't go offroad with their SUVs and Jeeps. Where should they? Unless you call the roads offroad already... its said that in Berlin (yeah, the capital) there are holes in the road as large as 10 cm. Considering that some cars are tuned to 1 to 2 cm... In my town road condition is still pretty ok, although France is sort of perfect. Most roads there are in perfect condition it seems. Highways here are in rather bad condition sometimes too...

But shouldn't SUVs or four wheel drives in general handle worse than normal cars because of their increased weight? So they can accelerate better, drive when normal cars have to stop, but as soon as they have to break they get into trouble.

On the engines... shouldn't the car companies give people what they want here too? And that is cheap gas and low fuel consumption. I think some EU nonsense again.

 

[Hyperfocal]

87 octane in the US is about 92 octane in Europe. The US uses pump octane which is the average of the two octane measurements -- Research Octane Number and Motor Octane Number ((RON+MON)/2)

It is just a different system.

 

[Unforgiven]

i just test drove a 2005 honda civic hybrid today and it was AWESOME! $19,000 price tag stock is a friggin great deal. im gonna go do some testing of the toyota hybrid this week and do some comparisons! fuel economy here i come!!!!!!

 

[RemyCanad]

Originally posted by: Unforgiven
i just test drove a 2005 honda civic hybrid today and it was AWESOME! $19,000 price tag stock is a friggin great deal. im gonna go do some testing of the toyota hybrid this week and do some comparisons! fuel economy here i come!!!!!!

Don't forget you get 2k from the gov't.

 

[CyGoR]

Another reason a lot of people in the US drive huge cars could be the price.. Lobadobadingdong spoke about the Nissan Murano. I don't know what it costs in the US, but here it has a price tag of ~?68.000 which is over $70.000. Almost 40% of the car value is paid in taxes here..
So when a big car is affordable, why bother buying a small one?

 

[Mardeth]

95 octane gazoline is lowest you can buy in Finland, its about 1?/l so ~1.2 per litre.

 

[Confused]

I just filled up for 75.5p per litre. (Tho I had a 3p per litre discount voucher). 58.26 litres (into a 60l tank) cost me £42.25 after discount.


However, around my home, it's about 78.9p per litre.


Garry

 

[CXGJarrod]

Drive a 4X4 1997 F-150. I take it offroading a lot, but now with gas prices at $2.30-$2.50 a gallon in San Diego I cant take it out much. Check out http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/ for the average gas prices in the USA.

 

[Assimilator1]

You got that cheap Garry!

I hear that people in the US do a higher milage ,(what's your average there? ,in the UK its 10-12,000/yr) but really you guys do have cheap petrol!.

Taking a few factors in 3.8lts= 1US gallon ,$1.79=£1 ,our petrol costs $5.43/US gal! :Q
Min Oct in UK is 95 (std UL ) super unleaded is either 97 or 98 (can't remember) & is more expensive

And yeah higher Octane petrol gives better fuel economy & power with an engine that can 'retune' itself for the higher Octane otherwise it wont make a jot of difference.

Currency conversion

lobadobadingdong
Where did you hear Octane rating effects injection systems? ,it shouldn't make any difference to that AFAIK

and the steel sleeved american engines also last a lot longer than the jap/euro aluminum engines

AFAIK ,most Euro engines have Alu blocks but with steel liners ,I believe BMW are 1 exception ,& they seem to last a decent milage

As far as London's air quality goes, thats more than likely down to so many old taxis,buses & coaches running around ,old Diesel engines pump out a lot of soot.They didn't really clean up that much until coaches made in the mid to late 90's so there's still plenty old ones running around.Of course there are other factors too though.
Also I would dispute that London has the worlds worst air quality for a city ,I know for a fact that Athens is worse!, not to mention cities from far poorer countries.I think you ought to recheck your info their

Btw do your trucks (I dont mean picks ups) ,coaches & buses have Diesel engines these days?

My car's a 12yr old Ford Sierra ,2.0i 8v DOHC which does about 33 MPG ,mostly urban driving with some 'inter urban' driving (country roads/motorways).Last I checked I do 13,000miles/yr.... oh yeah & its at 133,000 miles & counting (my last Sierra hit 140,000 miles on original engine before I crashed it! )

 

[dxkj]

1.95 in Chicago Suburbs

 

[CXGJarrod]

I would say most of Americas cars run on unleaded gas. There are a fair portion of trucks with diesel engines, but that is really only if you are going to tow a house.

 

[dxkj]

Originally posted by: MDE
About $1.85 in suburban Chicago (add about $.05+ in the city)

Im a bit west of you and paying too much as well .

 

[kadajawi]

Yes, I thought something like Rio de Janeiro or so has the worst air quality.
My 11 year old car is at 250000 km.

And btw. almost nothing speaks against diesels anymore. Polution is reduced thanks to some filters. The power of these engines is a bit like those huge US engines, a lot of power even at maybe 1500-2000 rpm. They are silent (newer ones, especially those used in cars like the Mercedes E class etc.)), they can go very fast (an tuned Alpine BMW diesel is more like a race car... or the 2 or 3 liter Opel which does like 250 km/h), etc. Of course I prefer a normal benzin (gazoline?) car, especially those from Japan because I like to go up to 6000-8000 rpm, but other than that diesels are fine cars.

 

[CyGoR]

Unfortunatly the Nissan Skyline isn't available in Europe (only in the UK) it has a rpm-redline @ 9000rpm

You are very right, the newer diesel engines are just as powerfull as normal gasoline engines. A normal BMW 5-series with a 2.0l V6 TDI has around 140BHP which is more then enough for a car of that size. A friend of mine has a Seat Leon 1.9TDI tuned up to 176BHP, that thing is FAST!! Drives 235kmp/h easily

 

[kadajawi]

Well, my diesel is a different generation. 1.9 liter, 64 bhp (rocks ), its loud, nailing. But its sturdy, and enough to kick some Corsa's asses Nothing to be proud of tho.

The Skyline is my favorite, powerful, good handling, and in the R34 some pretty funny geek toy (G meter and lots of data etc. on the screen). But there are other cars with high redline, like the Honda S2000 or BMWs. The highest I've been to is 6500 or so (not with the diesel of course... or maybe... I don't know... my car cannot show that to me).
But doesn't the skyline do more than 9000 rpm? Like... 10000? Seen that on a Skyline DVD... at least I think so.
You can get Skylines in Germany too, tho, but its a hard and expensive procedure to get the license. But the right hand drive is no problem, that is allowed. So there are a few Skylines in Germany.

 

[RaySun2Be]

$1.85 in Columbus, Oh. for 87 octane. Does drop down sometimes on Sunday/Monday to $1.77, if you watch for it. :|

The gas station (a major chain) where I usually go has started charging $0.50 for 3 minutes of air at the air pump unless you are a customer. As if they aren't making a bundle already. :|

Sad thing is, I can remember a time in HS when there was a gas war, and for awhile I was paying $0.19 per gallon. Normally it was $0.30 a gallon. Since I had a gas-guzzler and a poor HS student, '66 Chevelle SS 396ci (12 mpg city if I drove it like a senior citizen, 18mpg on the highway doing 70mph. I don't recall what I got cruising back & forth to work doing 100+mph though. :roll: ) it was great when I was paying $0.19.

I tell you, the fastest way we could turn these prices around would be for everyone who is into the "I gotta get what's in fashion/keeping up with the Jones" mindset would turn in their H2s and large SUVs, their large luxury cars, and trucks (excluding any used for business) and get vehicles getting better gas mileage, demand would drop, and so would prices. Like that will happen. :roll:

 

[kadajawi]

yep. But I've seen that some stars like the hybrid car... the one from japan. Lets hope that gets a trend. But I doubt they will have success here, because they are waaaay to expensive, and people use to drive fast here.

 

[RemyCanad]

Were are you from kadajawi?

 

[Ronin]

California gas prices are killing me Only this weekend have I seen it drop below $2 (barely) in a long time

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Where did you hear Octane rating effects injection systems? ,it shouldn't make any difference to that AFAIK

for a short time I used to be a light duty mechanic, that's strait from Fords training (1998). On newer domestic cars the injectors are made as cheaply as possible with sub-par aluminum, over time the nossles flare from the higher heat/compression and gets to a point where a fine mist of fuel is no-longer possible (it's more of a sputtering stream), the car will still run, but it's performance, economy, and emissions goes to hell in a hand basket. (this probably isn't the case with the european cars, you guys tend to build things with better components for normal driving)


AFAIK ,most Euro engines have Alu blocks but with steel liners ,I believe BMW are 1 exception ,& they seem to last a decent milage

BMW is really the only euro cars I've ever worked on (an occassional mercedes), I didn't know about other manufacturers. (Central Texas folks rarely see anything other than domestics and asian imports)